Inscriptions

I have successfully read another book this month. I read The Great Gatsby, and I am tongue tied, I bought this book in 2016 if I am not wrong, I wanted to read it long back especially when the movie came out in 2013, I was quite eager to watch it but, I didn't want to spoil the experience of reading the book by watching the movie prior to it. But 2013 was a time I wasn't exactly in a space where I could really read much, I was supposed to bury my nose in other kind of books, the books which would help me clear the UPSC not the books which challenged my imagination and rose intrigue about an era gone by. I will admit though, what attracted me to it was the era that the book was set in, I have this craze for the yesteryears, mainly to do with their clothes more than anything else. I love the kind of clothes women wore back then, the fabrics, the glimmer, the accessories, the way they wore their hair, I have always been so charmed by it. I know there were plenty of problematic iss...

It has been almost four days since I wrote anything and am dangerously close to falling out of habit once again. I must admit, I was afraid to write something on my blog for the past few days because I lacked inspiration and I was also afraid of sounding repetitive and boring as I ran out of words to pen down. With some motivation from my beloved husband I am here again, trying to string words together.  I have finally finished reading Edith Wharton's 'Age of Innocence'. I have tried my best to resist the temptation of going through any kind of notes on the book that are all over the Internet because I didn't want it to colour my judgement of the book. So here are my thoughts on the book. When I first started reading the book I was quite excited to read it, however it was a bit difficult to get through in between especially after part one of the book. The first scene in the opera, when Ellen walks in with her 'Josephine look' the whole of New York Society is sca...

In the recent years I have struggled with the idea of whether or not there is a god. The more I think about it the more I doubt the existence of a God or several gods. I perhaps started to question it a few years ago when I enrolled myself for Phd.  I was someone who firmly believed in God, and felt that he was the ever present being in my life guarding me through thick and thin, testing me, helping em grow stronger, rewarding me and blessing me for the good deeds I had done. I was deeply inducted into religion and religious practices by my grandparents. It was also one of the ways in which we bonded with my grandparents (paternal), religion was a tricky issue to discuss with my maternal grandparents. Most of what I know about Christianity is what my grandparents have taught me, surprisingly, most of what I knew about hinduism as a child was also because of my paternal grandfather. He would teach me about Jesus and tell me his important teachings and how I was to imbibe them into m...

I am so happy right, in fact I am not able to contain my excitement, My article got published today in one of the prominent Dalit web portals. I wrote it a while back, I almost gave up hope that it will ever get published. I told myself it is ok, it was a good effort and was a learning process for me too. And today it finally got published. I was having a dull moment today and then I got this news. I feel ecstatic, so much that I thought for a second that I can take the day off, but I felt too guilty for trying to put it off. Getting something published is the all the more reason, to continue writing so I made coffee and settled in my corner. Another reason I pushed myself to write was that I didn't write for three days in between and it was eating me up, the guilt would be too much to bear tomorrow. So here I am.  So far I have been able to publish three articles, that sure feels nice, I feel i should write more like this, apart from the projects that I have going on, I must write...

I skipped writing for the last three days, and I was afraid I am going to fall into the trap of not being able to get back, and I could't allow myself to do that now could I? So here I am. sitting in my favourite spot sipping my coffee, listening to Chris Martin singing to me 'Look at the stars, Look how they shine for you, and everything you do, yeah they were all yellow' and I must admit it is soothing to listen to it. Today I had this moment where I felt extremely low and sad, I just wanted to weep for no apparent reason, and it made me worried, I was really afraid I will slip into another phase of depression and anxiety, I just sat at my window and listened to music and looked out. The view from my room is of a river, it is pretty polluted actually and almost looks quite stagnant on most days. , but now water hyacinth has grown all over it, and turned the river into a meadow. At least it looks like a meadow now, in the midst of all the concrete is this beautiful patch o...

It is that time of the day where I get to sit in my corner and sip a cup of coffee and start typing away on my laptop. last year when I wanted to start writing, I was reading up some tips as to how to get started on writing. One of the things was to create your own space where you feel comfortable and write, that is something that resonated well with me. needless to say I wasn't quite successful in being able to do that and I kept putting it off because something or the other kept coming up and I pushed the whole writing thing to the back of my mind. This year I made a strong resolution to give it a try a wholehearted attempt, so I think somehow I was able to get it done. I feel so good sitting here and writing. The time that I sit to write is something I am really enjoying, it is that time that I have only to myself. It is especially great to write at night because there is no disturbance of any sort, just playing some music and letting my thoughts flow.  Today was not much of a p...

I almost gave up on writing today, I just thought to myself, that I probably need a break for a day as I have already been working on my writing projects. But I read something interesting, I saw this routine that called for three things to do, for improving writing namely, writing everyday (I think we have that covered, to some extent I suppose) and counting the number of written words, keeping track of the time spent in writing and the third, is reading. Just yesterday, I was thinking that I should probably include reading as part of my routine too, as I felt it would help me open up my mind and give me some insights as to how to improve what I am writing. I have been writing something or the other for the past few days, some good, some bad and some average, so I feel it probably is time to take it to the next step, increase the number of words I am writing. My initial challenge was to write just 250 words, but most days I am writing more than that and some days I exceed that as well....

I was so excited to write yesterday but I think there was too much of interference of ideas. It wasn't a great day, writing wise. It was one of those days where it didn't add up, like it wasn't doing justice to what I wrote before that. So I took a step back and left it, I started working on the project, that was constantly interfering with my writing process. I feel like being so caught up with all this is preventing form writing anything substantial on my blog. I know this was initially supposed to be something of just a practice writing kit sort of thing, but I do feel good when I write something worth reading in this space. The occasional nod or appreciation I get from my mother or my friends when they happen to read it gives me a lot of strength and encouragement. It is all the more reason to write something worthwhile rather than just randomly ranting.  I don't know how far this little experiment of mine is going to work out, and how successful it is going to be, ...

I was looking at some of my old writings, I had been so embarrassed about them, so kept them tucked away somewhere, where I can't find them easily. But somehow I happened to stumble upon it and I was pleasantly surprised by some parts of it. I now have a new lease of excitement to refine it and rewrite it. I have an idea on how to make it better. I am really looking forward to it. I now have four writing projects. (Should I be worried?) I am quite thrilled to know which one is going to make it to the finish line first. The deadline is this December. I hope I can finish writing at least one of them around that time. I have decided to keep them going, although I have a feeling I am going to shelf one of them for now, because I'm not getting enough material and inspiration to write it. Anyway, so let's see how it goes. I am weirdly getting some deja vu as I am writing this.  I need to get back to what I was working on yesterday so I shall stop here for now. 

I didn't write for the past few days and I was beginning to feel guilty that I wasn't writing, I was depressed and couldn't get myself to do anything. Then I pushed myself to write something that I was putting off for a while. And I got busy with that. I initially thought of writing it as an essay but I think it probably is going to turn out to be a bit more than that. I actually drew inspiration from reading bell hooks' essay 'Understanding Patriarchy'. I have been struggling to write something worthy, I always feel like I fall into a trap when I try to write a a book. I can write short stories but book is something i'm not quite sure I can accomplish. I start out to write and then I suddenly get stuck and stop. Short story on the other hand  I can get myself to finish, but cannot say the same thing for a book. Perhaps it is the lack of pressure of completing a lengthy prose that helps to finish off writing the short story.   Anyway so I started out writing...

I was depressed today, so I couldn't really do the things I had lined up for the day, more like I didn't feel like doing anything. So I just sat back. I don't know why, I felt bad, maybe it had to something to do with the second coming of my period, which I thought had made a clean exit, but guess what the apocalypse was upon us. I just hated it. I got so annoyed last night and kind of woke up with that same irritated feeling. Growing up I remember how much I wanted to be part of the big girls club namely my mother and other elder women in the family, I thought if I got my period then they would start considering me as one of their own and that I would get the same respect as everyone else did and that we all would have our own secrets, it would sort of be our own little privy club! After years of waiting I finally got my period, and yes I was made part of the privy club, but it didn't quite turn out to be what I wanted it to be. I thought I would be more free but ironi...

This evening as I was preparing today's dinner I was having a conversation with my husband about the provisions we need to buy, and we decided we'll make pasta tomorrow by the time the provisions come in tomorrow. I added "don't put in the rice cooker like you did last time" and continued with my cooking and thought to myself, I wish he honed his cooking skills a bit more.Actually I see my husband as someone who helps out in the kitchen, but someone who helps out when you ask, and has taken the initiative on certain occasions and he helps out with domestic work, which I think is a good thing. But as I continued to stir the vegetables, I thought to myself of how on numerous occasions, he does cook but not that well, which is actually one of the reasons I do the cooking myself. He doesn't really put in much thought or effort like I do, and for him food is not such a big deal, if it is palatable he eats it without complaining about the taste and so on, on the oth...

I was reading up about Mary Wollstonecraft and listening to some lectures on youtube about her. Something that caught my heart was that she wanted to earn her living by writing and that she had said 'i would be the first genus of women to do that'.  Somehow that statement made me very happy. I see myself as someone who wants to make a living with writing, at least partly. So the fact that one of the first feminist writers also thought that was something cool.  Writing is something that has always captivated me, for me writing is the ability to create something, the ability to express things, the ability to form a political discourse, the ability to analyse the past, and the ability to tell a story, writing has been so many things for me. When I was in cottons, writing was something that helped me form a sort of escape, I would be in my imaginary world and try to write something. Most of the time I was writing about more or less the same thing I suppose, my crushes or my love i...

I have been making a conscious effort to read/listen to more Feminist discourse. Even though I consider myself a feminist I felt it was important to learn about Feminism more, I think one hand it gives a feeling of reassurance that you are not wrong, there were so many people especially women who thought and felt the way I did. And just that can be so comforting when every day you are trying to explain things to people and making them understand and see your point. On the other, it also gives you an insight into learning about the kind of struggles that were led before and where you need to pick up from. Theres is so much internalized misogyny in all of us, and it is an excruciating process to unlearn that and relearn things, nevertheless it a necessary process if we dream of equality. Another important thing is it helps to combat the misogynists spewing hatred all over.  I was listening to Chimamanda Ngozi's Speech, 'Why we should all be Feminists?' I think it is one of th...